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10 Answers

Wow, these are very good ideas for the logo. How did you make them? I think they can be furthered by adding a \(\hbar \)between "p" and "o" in the first one. It will make sense, because of Physics Overflow (Ph, and o). But this already looks very nice and creative.

Hahaha, a black hole :-D...? +1!
How did you make these, they are very nice and make me feel tempted tovpush the check mark against our decision to not use that button because I like them so much :-P...
The second one could be used everywhere where we have enough space to fully write the name PhysicsOverflow down, the first one as an icon for example as the default user avatar, and the third to advertise the site on MathOverflow, in our profilels, etc ...
And of course I like the allusion to MathOverflow

The only problem with this at the momment is that it does not have a transparent background, so it won't fit in with the current background. This is easily fixable, though. Why, even MS powerpoint has a remove background tool!

Thanks guys, didn't know that you would like these pictures so much. Anyway, we still have enough time to decide the logo. So please feel free to modify above pictures, or come up with some other idea and make new pictures, so that we can have best logo for our site :)

@Ryan Thorngreen, do you honestly think that user10001's logo is "ugly"? To me, it looks beautiful; the "O" is not only resemblant to a black hole or a "tornado/hurricane", but also the idea of "flow"...

I have to second what Dimension10 says, I personally like them a lot (maybe the space between physics and the BH in the second version could be decreased a bit).
Of coutse it would be great if you could still ask other people, such that we can choose from many good logos :-)

I'll try to be more constructive. The current fonts make them look like they were made in MS Paint. I dislike most forms of replacing a letter with a picture. Having some tasteful text beside a simple picture is fine. Take the SE physics logo as an example. That is a well designed logo. The sombrero potential is nicely drawn and the Feynman diagram behind the word Physics gives it a sense of action. Further, the SE logo is line art, which is easily vectorizable and is always going to look more professional than a many-colored bit map. Take a look at logos you see around you in the outside world. How many of them have many-colored bitmaps as part of them? None as far as I can think of. They're all a clever use of 3 or 4 colors and nice typography.

Do you think it is possible for somebody with the right tools, knowhow and experience to take User10001's ideas as first drafts and redraw and improve them such that they are up to professional graphical standards at the end ... ?

I cant help it, but until I see something more cute, I still like these ideas and looking at them I think they represent what PhysicsOverflow is up to (in particular when interpreting the spiral as a BH) rather to the point ...

Hi Dimension10, the one with transparant background you made could work. But I agree with Ryan that it should get a bit polished by a graphics experts who knows what he is doing, as at present its quality is not scale invariant...

I have made a vectorised version using an online converter (http://image.online-convert.com) which usually doesn't work too well, but it was fine this time, except for a few errors which I fixed.

I have made some modifications, for example, I made the spiral black on the left, and dark blue (the same dark blue used in the original answer) on the right. This helps make it seen as a black hole, and also makes it agree with the concept of flow. I have made the "physics" black to blend in with the blackness of the left side of the spiral "O".

I have also made the "h" in "physics" an hbar and reduced the space between "physics" and "overflow" a bit.

I have made two versions, the second has a capitalised "P" instead of "p" in the "Physics" not "physics".

I am also not completely sure if the SVG can be directly embedded as the logo, even if it does, it may not work on all browsers; it may be a good idea to use the PNG instead: Of course the PNG is not scale-invariant, but there is no way to fix this, at least I don't think it can be fixed. It will still look good on the site at the top, since the size seems to me perfect for the top logo.

If not, you can send me the dimensions of the site header by default, and I will resize the SVG and convert to the PNG at the correct resolution.

Ok, it's a good thing the SVG works. It works on both chrome/chromium and firefox/pale moon. I haven't tested with I.E. yet (the copy of IE9 I have is too slow, it takes more than 3 minutes to even start, even slower than anyone would expect I.E. to be), though, who uses I.E. now anyway?

I agree the logo looks too large,... I am still making an SVG version of the small logo.

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V1:

I think, that Ron's answer can be a favicon, this can be the small logo (like "mo" is for "MathsOverflow"), and physicsnewbie's could be the main head logo (though it could be edited a bit as Ron has suggested in his last comment 2 or 3 or 4 minutes ago there). Maybe, Ron's logo can be added in the left side of the logo by physicsnewbie.

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Huh, but the logo should surely contain something that hints at the fact that the site is about physics ...? I pesonally rather like the allusion to MathOverflow, as PhysicsOverflow will be a high-level rather professional site but for physics. For people who have heard about MathOverflow it is self evidently clear what a PhysicsOverflow is meant to be from just reading the name.

Ok, then it should use the same font. Perhaps then just Physics, without the overflow, so that it is "physics" over flow, as in over flowing water. But whatever, it's not significant. I like the water thing, but I think the flow should be more clearly a flow, rather than arrows.

@Ron I did it like this because Dilaton wants to emphasize this site is at the same level as mathoverflow. Personally, I think we should sever any link with "overflow" because stackoverflow is a programming term, and instead we should think of a name with a physics feel: "Relativistic covariance", "stacked branes", "vibrating strings" etc. Then we can create a logo for it. But I'm under the impression that the votes were in favour of "physicsoverflow"

I played around with ideas for "flow", and chose this because it's simple, and less of an eyes sore. Once it gets too complicated, it takes away from the main "physics overflow" text.

Physicsnewbie: I agree with you--- physics overflow is too derivative, I always err on the side of originality. But the domain is registered, people decided. I would have gone with a crazy neutral name, like "Understatic", which doesn't have any "physics" or any stackexchange or stackoverflow connotations. Regarding the logo--- It is an artistic mistake to use two different fonts in any logo, an amateur mistake. Mathoverflow made it, but we don't need to.

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@dimension10 The current logo got 4 upvotes and I didn't want us to modify it beyond all recognition without the go-ahead of everyone else, so I thought it would be better to suggest my own modification on this thread. I don't see much of a difference between this hbar and the current one - they both look good to me.

I tried to make the "physics" look formal and I guess "boring" just like the maths in math overflow and physics in physics stack exchange, and to give it an air of seriousness.

Then you say: "I assure you that it will start to look stupid in a matter of less than a week". Well that's just your opinion, and someone else has upvoted it. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it and thought me doing one myself would be less of a pain for you than asking you to modify yours, putting it on this thread, and then getting people to declare it OK.

@dimension10 In my updated answer, I've changed the cursive overflow because you and Dilaton don't like it. It's not meant to be inviting to everyone, as with the mathoverflow font, and the 'O' is meant to convey a swirling towards the center, as in a vortex. I'm trying to create a unique logo similar in style to the stack/mathoverflow ones that gives an air of professionalism. Professionalism doesn't always imply for-profit since mathoverflow started out this way.

I'm under the impression that we're trying to make this site the physics equivalent of mathoverflow.

@dimension10 the design is mine, inspired by the picture in the current logo, I did it on Inkscape. I want to keep it simple, but I can add some more detail if you think it doesn't look like a spiraling vortex enough. Can you give me a few names of for-profit for companies that use this design? Just to make sure that I'm not inadvertently copying theirs.

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I am partial to Eric Heller's wonderful images of electron transport, which recieved attention in the art world (even though they are the product of imaging of scientific simulation). Any one of them would make a fantastic logo, and get him some more recognition, and they are visually arresting, and very contemporary-looking. Here's the one I found first (I like it):

This is transport 3 (it looks good small, but one should ask Eric's permission, of course).

There's also Transport 6:

And a nice one, transport II

These are all very nice contemporary artworks, they depict some visualization of a 2d electron flow, and are pure physics.

If you would like to see what can be done with these, here is a modified Heller image, color-adjusted with a hand-painted hbar, that Heller probably wouldn't even recognize.

I like these, especially the last one, but we should probably choose something less boring than the \(\hbar \)... Maybe some other constant, or a Lagrangian Density symbol... Or a state vector, or anything else except for an h-bar, it's too common. The state vector is also easy to make it look as if it' is curved, since it's on the surface of something that looks curved.

Aargh! It takes a long time to draw those stupid things, as I don't have a tablet or touchpad. If someone has a tablet handy, then perhaps they can do it, I am using mouse. The problem with "state vector" is that it is hard to identify when small, hbar remains visible and clearly identifiable, even if you shrink the logo down to a few dozen pixels. It is also a glyph that is uniquely associated with physics, it occurs in no other context, so it makes a natural symbol. It is commonly used for a reason.

Physicsnewbie: Who are you? Can you use your real name, or at least identify yourself by another handle people recognize? This is a private beta. I disagree that there is any need for a logo that is not an image, but the last image can be used to make an hbar with a circle around it as a logo/trademark.

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